Pinning the shoulders of a Reaver Titan

Here are the steps I took to pin the shoulders of a reaver titan…

I used JB-Weld epoxy to first glue to shoulders to the main body of the reaver titan. Because the shoulders will be subject to leveraged weight of the weapon arms, I wanted this to be as strong of a bond as possible, so I roughed up the surface of the weld on both the body and the shoulder pieces with the hobby knife, and used the ‘full strength’ JB-Weld (instead of the JQ-Quick). When using full strength, you have to let it cure overnight… and to ensure that nothing shifted during curing I clamped the heck out of each shoulder.

The next day, once the JB-Weld had cured, I carefully drilled a hole from the inside of the body through the ‘thick part’ of the shoulder. Because of the location, the pin-vice length forces the hole to be drilled at a downward angle, and I was constantly gauging the depth of the drill to make sure I didn’t drill through the outer surface of the shoulder. After the holes were drilled and cleaned, I thinly coated a rather heavy brass rod with JB-Weld and Gently (with a finishing hammer) drove the brass rod into the hole. Here you can see both brass rods installed.

Finally, because the rods were driven in at an angle, they protrude from the wall a bit. To remedy this, I CAREFULLY used a Dremel tool and a grind stone to remove the extraneous brass. This created a flush surface that will allow the inner walls (with servitors and terminals) to glue in cleanly. Because the inner walls will cover these surfaces, you don’t have to get it perfectly flat (can be indented a bit). Here you see a picture of a ‘freshly ground’ brass pin.

Between the JB-Weld and the thick brass rod, I expect the resin to crack before this joint fails!